Today in Iraq

"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring 'em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “ - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

DAILY WAR NEWS FOR THURSDAY, August 24, 2006Photo: U.S. Marines guard a hallway at the Ramadi General Hospital in this July 2006 file photo in Iraq. The Marine Corps will soon begin ordering thousands of its troops back to active duty because of a shortage of volunteers for Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Jacob Silberberg, File) (See below "Is The Next Step A Draft?")
Bring 'em on: A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier died of wounds after his patrol was attacked by terrorists using small-arms fire at approximately 12:15 p.m. today in Baghdad. (CENTCOM)Bring ‘em on: A Multi-National Division - Baghdad Soldier died at approximately 8 a.m. today when the vehicle he was riding in was struck by an improvised-explosive device south of Baghdad. (MNF-Iraq)Bring 'em on: A U.S. Army Soldier was killed Aug. 23 while conducting combat operations south of Baghdad when his unit came in contact with enemy forces. (CENTCOM)Bring ‘em on: Chief Petty Officer Paul J. Darga, 34, of Lansing, Mich., died Aug. 22 when his Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team was struck by an improvised explosive device while responding to a previous strike. His unit was conducting combat operations against enemy forces in the Al Anbar province, Iraq. (DefenseLink)British troops abandoned their base in Iraq's southern Maysan province on Thursday, which has been under almost nightly attack, and prepared to head deep into the marshlands along the Iranian border to hunt gun smugglers. The 600 combat troops are giving up their Challenger tanks and Warrior armoured fighting vehicles in favour of stripped-down Landrovers armed with machineguns. The units will remain constantly on the move and be resupplied by air drops. The Hussars were until Thursday stationed at Camp Abu Naji near Amara, the capital of Maysan province which also has a large presence of Mehdi Army militia fighters loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. While dismissing suggestions the British had been forced out of Amara, he acknowledged the attacks had been one reason for the decision to withdraw, the second being that a static base did not fit with the new operation.

"We ... have united the Iraqis against us. And so I'm convinced, once we redeploy to Kuwait or to the surrounding area, that it will be much safer. They won't be able to unify against the United States. And then, if we have to go back in, we can go back in."

Murtha's resolution calls for the U.S. to create 'a quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S. Marines' to be 'deployed to the region'. To make matters worse, John Murtha indicated in a press conference that it would take six months even to redeploy our troops.
We are killing 100 Iraqis each day. That's 3,000 innocent Iraqis dead each month. Why do these Democrats want to kill 18,000 more Iraqis before they even redeploy to Kuwait?
read in full...THE AGONY OF IRAQ
The past couple of days have been relatively peaceful in Iraq - for example, only a couple of dozen people have been reported killed each day in and around Baghdad, about half the recent average. Of course, it's taken extreme security measures to achieve even that modest goal, as the New York Times noted yesterday:

Rooftop snipers and mortar fire killed 20 people and wounded 300 others as they walked through religiously mixed neighborhoods in Baghdad on Sunday to commemorate the death of one of Shiite Islam's holiest figures, an Iraqi Health Ministry spokesman said.American and Iraqi officials had been planning security for the pilgrimage for months, trying to avoid the huge loss of life during the pilgrimage last year, when more than 950 died after rumors of a suicide bomber caused a stampede on a bridge packed with pilgrims.. . . But by early Sunday morning, rival groups were exchanging gunfire on Baghdad's streets, officials and residents said, as processions of pilgrims, segregated by sex, ran into apartment blocs and under highway overpasses for cover.. . . The American military released a statement late Sunday that seemed to play down the deaths. "Iraqi military and civil leaders provided a comprehensive security plan to ensure there would be no recurrence of violence that marred last year's event," the American statement said. "As a result, there were no major attacks."

That's the kind of chaos that Iraq has developed into three and a half years after Dubya decided to bring them the gift of freedom and democracy, where a score of murders in broad daylight can be written off as minor.
read in full…IS THE NEXT STEP A DRAFT?
An Iraq War veterans group says the call-up of thousands of Marines from the Individual Ready Reserve, announced by the Pentagon today, is "one of the last steps before resorting to a draft."
"This move should serve as a wake-up call to America," said Jon Soltz, an Army captain who served in Iraq and heads the group VoteVets.org, which raises funds for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans running for Congress. "Today's announcement that thousands of Marines in the Individual Ready Reserve will be called back to go to Iraq is proof that our military is overextended, and there is no plan for victory in Iraq."
While the Pentagon has repeatedly maintained the armed forces have met their recruiting and retention goals, Soltz says, "Today's actions speak louder than words."
The IRR are reservists, who have returned to civilian life, don't drill on a regular basis and prior to the Iraq war were rarely called to active duty. The Army has been dipping into their IRR pool since shortly after the beginning of the war, but today the Marine Corps said they also planned to call thousands of these traditionally last resort troops back to active duty.
"If this call-up directly fed into a plan for victory and bringing our troops home, we could take some solace. But there is no plan. We must demand a detailed, military victory strategy in Iraq, which will get our troops out of harm's way and relieve the strain on our active duty troops," said Stolz.
The Bush administration has stated that the reinstatement of a military draft is unlikely. Earlier this summer, Vice President Cheney told reporters he is supporter of an all volunteer military.
"We keep the provisions for the draft in case circumstances should arise where it might be needed," he said, "but I don't foresee the development of those kinds of conditions any time in the future."
linkSUNNI, SHIA AND US ME POLITICS
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this theme of "democratisation" has become a major topic in American political discourse and in fact accompanies nearly all discussions of the Arab-Muslim world and America's so-called role in it.
The Bush administration's response to the current conflict in southern Lebanon, reveals the hypocrisy and true ideology of this administration in aiming at provoking sectarian tension in the region.
Western analysts continue to discuss an alleged "historic" hostility between Sunni and Shia in the region. Dexter Filkins, an Iraq based New York Times journalist claimed in a recent radio interview that the Sunni in Iraq have now "realised that the Shia are their true enemy, not the Americans."
But the fact is that this statement contradicts history, Iraq Sunni and Shia have been living together for centuries. Modern history books are free from any reference to war between them, but not until the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Martin Peretz claims that the most virulent social conflict in Middle Eastern history "is the Sunni hatred of the Shia, and vice versa," another groundless claim seems to suggest that Muslims somehow cause more harm to one another than the illegal occupations of their land. Western analysts and journalists newfound enthusiasm for sectarian history in the Muslim world needs to be contextualised.
The danger in baseless claims made by western journalists, become even greater when policy makers and American voters begin to rely on them to assess appropriate action in the Muslim and Arab regions. (...)
American policy in the Middle East has two major components: First, the Bush administration has an absolute disdain for true democracy in the Middle East and, secondly, this administration is in great need for civil war throughout the entire region.
These observations may appear bold to western reader-it is a common perception amongst Arab and Muslim readers_-when we examine US behaviour, however, it becomes difficult to conclude otherwise.
Firstly, the major targets of US criticism and Israeli aggression in the current crises-Hamas and Hezbollah are widely popular resistance groups who have democratically elected representative.
President Ahmednijad of Iran, who came to office elected by Iranian people himself, is a target of international criticism because of his hard stance against Israel.
Yet Mr. Bush who often says he is a leader of a state belongs to the "free world" supports unelected rulers in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt. The Bush administration's cosy relationship with those rulers should serve as fair warning to green eared reformers in the Arab and Muslim world who seek out this administration's alliance in the hope for political change.
Furthermore, analyzing US policy in this regard should shed some light on the recent political history of Iraq and help explain why events have taken that turn in that country.
These Arab leaders have justified their unpopular alliance with the United States by invoking sectarianism, while the US has justified its alliance with kings and dictators in the name of "protecting" the mainly Sunni Muslim world against alleged sectarian threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah who are Shia Muslims.
Let us be clear-this threat cannot be detected amongst the Arab public, it exists largely as an abstract idea that conveniently serves those in power.
When one takes a step back and looks at the broad picture of the current conflict it becomes apparently and ironically clear that the elected officials and regimes of the Muslim world are the targets of American and Israeli hostility. (...)
Most western observers have conveniently ignored widespread Sunni support for Hezbollah throughout the Arab and Muslim world. In Iraq the US employed a formula of sectarianism in order to entrench itself all the more deeply into Iraqi politics; we now find this formula being extrapolated across the greater Muslim world.
read in full...HOW MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE DO YOU GET TO KILL IN THE NAME OF PRESERVING YOUR OWN LIFE?
The WaPo report today on the Haditha massacre says in as many words that the Marines involved didn't think that anything unusual had taken place, quoting the statement of a sgt in a "Marine human intelligence exploitation team" who walked the scene and talked to the Marines a few hours later. The Post writer suggests that the Marines "viewed the civilian deaths as accidental rather than the result of a vengeful rampage." 24 accidental deaths. Oops. Certainly their colonel didn't consider those deaths to be anything remarkable, much less worthy of investigation. What these stories leave out is the attempted cover-up. As I've said before, when the first story the Marines told was a blatant lie (that they were all killed by an IED), it behooves you to look fairly carefully at their next story. Also, I'm not sure how exonerating it is if they killed dozens of civilians calmly following procedure rather than in a furious rage after the death of a Marine, directed not at those responsible but at the nearest available Iraqis. Even had they thought themselves under attack, which they claim and which I don't believe, how many innocent people do you get to kill in the name of preserving your own life? In the last scene of "Saving Private Ryan," Ryan wonders if his life had been worth the lives of the men who had been killed "saving" him. How is that question changed if you're the one who pulled the trigger?
>> BEYOND IRAQARE FOX NEWS EMPLOYEES REALLY "NONCOMBATANTS"?
Are FOX employee's innocent bystanders or an integral part of the American war machine? That may turn out to be an important question now that 2 FOX workers have been captured by a group of Palestinian militants.
It would be hard, if not impossible to draw a line of separation between the US military and FOX News. Their anchors may shun the camouflage fatigues and jack-boots, but that is where the difference ends. FOX is a fully-integrated cog in the corporate/state media apparatus; faithfully reiterating the official statements of Pentagon Big-wigs and administration powerbrokers. Their "embedded" news team provides the splashy graphics and right wing chatter which energize their base and marshal public support for American aggression. They carefully create a narrative which makes deliberate acts of unprovoked warfare appear necessary and (even) humanitarian.
No one has violated the basic standards of journalistic integrity more consistently than FOX News. Their unwavering support for the war in Iraq demonstrates their blatant disregard for professional evenhandedness and neutrality. Dissenting opinions are scrupulously scrubbed from their broadcasts while the vulgar displays of jingoism and xenophobia are presented as "Fair and Balanced" coverage. On some FOX web sites it's still possible to find articles which claim that Weapons of Mass Destruction were actually found in Iraq. No wonder nearly 50% of the American people still believe that Saddam posed a threat to our national security and that Bush's illegal invasion was justified.
If FOX is an essential part of the state propaganda-system which facilitates the war, then how can we absolve their employees from accountability? Doesn't that make them legitimate targets for resistance organizations?
read in full...QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I am convinced that the occupying forces are seeking to destroy the Iraqi people with the help of certain domestic powers. I think the solution lies in disbanding the Iraqi army and security forces and forcing the U.S. forces to withdraw from my town. " -- Mohamed Jassim, a 45-year-old teacher from Fallujah speaking to BBC Arabic.com